Dear community, I am trying to edit pdfs stored in a document library on sharepoint with no success. Is this possible at all to do? Regards!

I just set up an entire workflow for staff and important committee members in which the committee members, who are external users, would mark up a fillable PDF with comments in comment boxes I created as fillable fields. I just got an email back from one of them saying his comments disappeared after he filled them in. The entire point of this was to make document review and commenting as easy as possible with as few clicks as possible. Requesting a committee of six people either use internet explorer (you overestimate how many people even know what the word 'browser' means) and follow additional steps, or download and reupload (bad, bad, bad practice in any situation) the PDF is not even under consideration. It's humiliating that I did a training for everyone, created documentation, and then come to find out that a feature that should be there isn't. (While MS is at it, please make fillable PDFs appear in their fillable form upon clicking on the file name in SharePoint - as it is, you have to hover over the file, click the vertical dots > Open > Open in browser for the file to even appear in its fillable form - which as previously detailed is a bait and switch anyway, since if you fill it out, it won't save)

Well,To do that, the only thing you can do (unless there is a browser Plugin that allows to do it) is to download the PDF file, edit it in your local PC and upload it again to the document librar. As an alternative to download the PDF file, you can sync to your PC using OneDrive For Business Sync Client and just edit the file using your PDF reader.Microsoft and Adobe are working hard to have a better integration of Adobe in Office 365, so we can expect improvements in PDF documents edition in Office 365 in the future

For my main client in medical communications, being able to edit PDFs directly from SharePoint is a Holy Grail that is proving very elusive. Two years after this topic was started and the situation is no better. Does any 3rd party PDF editor work really well with SharePoint? A lot of them (e.g. Nitro Pro and Foxit) purport to work with SharePoint but their user interfaces are horrible and unworkable - esp. if you use a lot of Office 365 groups which use normal SharePoint document libraries. I really don't understand why the PDF developers can't implement a better interface to SharePoint. They've done the hard work with being able to open via WebDAV - just need better ways to bookmarking document libraries. And certainly a better way to search for document libraries associated with Office 365 groups - and then bookmark. I've developed lots of software over the years and know how to access SharePoint (mainly from PowerShell but idea is the same). I'm pretty sure I could improve the Nitro Pro SharePoint interface in a few days. But the biggest blocker here is Microsoft. Sure, you can "Open in Word" direct from the web browser, but where are the hooks to allow "Open in Nitro Pro" or "Open in Photoshop" because yes, graphic artists really struggle as well. And synchronisation via OneDrive isn't very attractive as that means you're encouraging copies of documents to be stored on the laptop. Kind of defeats "data never leaves the data centre" approach. Plus you loose record locks and end up with version clashes. Neat - not! Really, I'm very confused why this hasn't been solved yet. Would mean my client wasn't so reliant on network locations...

Deleted and all other views of this thread - please up-vote this feature in UserVoice.Don't relax (or be-lax) as some have suggested here - use you voice and vote here:https://office365.uservoice.com/forums/264636-general/suggestions/18507451-allow-editing-of-pdf-files-from-sharepoint-online

I just finished doing that but your suggestion to set the library to default open to client app I'll do now. Thanks Alan. But if any MS staff is reading, this fix doesn't suffice. Issue *not* resolved. Nothing short of near-total Adobe-MS integration will do in the business world...if MS can't imitate PDF features for IP reasons. You see my end users don't care what they click on. They just want to click on something once and have it work right. This is the smartphone mentality. People are no longer used to having to hunt around on screens for things.

Edit PDF in sharepoint online | Microsoft Community Hub

66 Replies

Vanessa41
Copper Contributor
Dec 04, 2023
i have found that PDF's are fillable in SharePoint while working on Microsoft edge. it does not function as it should in Google Chrome.
bdmunoz
Copper Contributor
Nov 13, 2023
Muhimbi has PDF Editor for Sharepoint available for SharePoint OnPremise, customer hosted SharePoint Online, and Muhimbi hosted SharePoint Online.

You can open, edit, etc. PDFs within SharePoint and the document and changes can be saved directly back into SharePoint.
UncleJerem
Copper Contributor
Jul 11, 2022
Unfortunately with my findings in this last week found the following in relation to Adobe Document Cloud integration:

Sharepoint Online in the web browser and Adobe Document Cloud license:
1. Only editing capabilities known is very basic with ability to only add add text boxes, draw and commenting (along with collating pages and PDF export).
2. The standard tools you would find in the Adobe Acrobat desktop suite like measure, etc., are not available in the web browser.

Sharepoint Online use from the Adobe Acrobat desktop suite:
1. Sharepoint sites can be added as known storage within the desktop software.
2. All Adobe PDF editing features are present and able to be used.
3. Downside is that every time a new Sharepoint site is worked on, need to add it to the desktop suite.

Interested to know if any of you out there is using another PDF editing suite tied in with Sharepoint Online in the browser with all aspects of the integration present?
- Qiuzman
  Copper Contributor
  Dec 21, 2022
  I have integrated some of our users with the Adobe cloud OneDrive tools and I think they meet most users needs however I must say MS Graph api is very inconsistent in handling PDFs and so if you are intending to ever do any custom integrations with OneDrice or Sharepoint with heavy pdf usage I probably would use Box which is highly integrated with MS file types and Pdfs
- BecC1234
  Copper Contributor
  Aug 19, 2022
  I'm in the middle of the same thing atm. Did you already investigate Wondershare PDFelement at all?
Paula Flores
Iron Contributor
Aug 05, 2021
I don't know if anyone has answered this yet, but what I do is make sure that SP library is synced to my computer; then open that file using File Explorer; if your default apps open correctly and pdf docs are set to open with Adobe DC (subscription), then you should get the editing tools you need and save it exactly from where you opened it. Hope that helps?
- Ronaldvdz
  Copper Contributor
  Nov 30, 2021
  and lists with pdf attachments? ... they can't be synced. And 'NO scripting' is allowed in our tenant.
- rob_nicholson_helios
  Brass Contributor
  Aug 06, 2021
  Synchronisation or network location is the only practical solution to this but OneDrive is not the most stable of applications and can still lead to version clashes.
  
  The inability to open documents direct from SharePoint into 3rd party apps is top of our list of problems in M365. It's very frustrating that Microsoft haven't implement some mechanism to implement this obvious requirement. File sharing took a step backwards when they implemented SharePoint document libraries compared to old Windows file servers with baked-in file locking.
mshults99
Copper Contributor
Aug 05, 2021
I'm sure it's pricey, but Adobe appears to have finally come around to supporting the M365 platform more effectively with Acrobat.

See https://appsource.microsoft.com/en-us/product/web-apps/adobeinc.adobe-document-cloud-pdf. Fairly recent vintage. I don't have experience with this yet, but I will soon. Spec-wise, seems to check all the boxes.
- Trevor Seward
  MVP
  Aug 05, 2021
  Unfortunately Adobe still misses the mark. There is no method to jump from SPO/Teams -> Adobe Acrobat desktop, even with the extension.
rob_nicholson_helios
Brass Contributor
May 04, 2020
For my main client in medical communications, being able to edit PDFs directly from SharePoint is a Holy Grail that is proving very elusive. Two years after this topic was started and the situation is no better.

Does any 3rd party PDF editor work really well with SharePoint? A lot of them (e.g. Nitro Pro and Foxit) purport to work with SharePoint but their user interfaces are horrible and unworkable - esp. if you use a lot of Office 365 groups which use normal SharePoint document libraries.

I really don't understand why the PDF developers can't implement a better interface to SharePoint. They've done the hard work with being able to open via WebDAV - just need better ways to bookmarking document libraries. And certainly a better way to search for document libraries associated with Office 365 groups - and then bookmark.

I've developed lots of software over the years and know how to access SharePoint (mainly from PowerShell but idea is the same). I'm pretty sure I could improve the Nitro Pro SharePoint interface in a few days.

But the biggest blocker here is Microsoft. Sure, you can "Open in Word" direct from the web browser, but where are the hooks to allow "Open in Nitro Pro" or "Open in Photoshop" because yes, graphic artists really struggle as well.

And synchronisation via OneDrive isn't very attractive as that means you're encouraging copies of documents to be stored on the laptop. Kind of defeats "data never leaves the data centre" approach. Plus you loose record locks and end up with version clashes. Neat - not!

Really, I'm very confused why this hasn't been solved yet. Would mean my client wasn't so reliant on network locations...
- hoderd
  Brass Contributor
  Jun 09, 2020
  rob_nicholson_helios
  Have a look at PDF-XChange Editor Plus. It works well with SharePoint (at least for me). Also if you do anything requiring measuring it has the best measuring tool out there.
  https://www.tracker-software.com/product/pdf-xchange-editor
  - rob_nicholson_helios
    Brass Contributor
    Jun 12, 2020
    Thanks for heads-up, will check it out
SteveMartin
Brass Contributor
Jun 13, 2019
Hey Everyone - just letting you know Adobe now has a version of Acrobat that connects to your SharePoint Online/Azure subscription as an Enterprise App. You'll need your O365 Admin to install it but once installed it allows Annotation of PDFs inside the browser for PDFs stored on your SharePoint Online site.

Find more info here:
https://documentcloud.adobe.com/o365pdf/start.html
Opening PDFs seems to go through the documentcloud.adobe.com and is a little slower than browser supported viewing of PDFs but the annotation in browser editing is worth it IMHO.
- Carl_Aegis
  Iron Contributor
  Apr 21, 2020
  SteveMartin thanks for the link, but, Acrobat wants another $16/month per seat for this benefit. We already have a PDF editing tool but we are being blocked from using it on the 365 platform (not sure blocked is the right term but you get the idea). PDF format is an open language and we should be able to use the tools we already have to provide this functionality.
- Richard Bourke
  Iron Contributor
  Jun 13, 2019
  We looked at this recently, if memory serves, you have to configure any SharePoint library/folder location that you want to work in first in Adobe. A common scenario for us is users sharing PDFs for review with others via OneDrive. Adobe DocumentCloud was a non runner as it still makes the process for the user cumbersome.
  
  If you discover different, please let me know.
  - SteveMartin
    Brass Contributor
    Jun 13, 2019
    Richard Bourke The Adobe Acrobat Cloud is setup as an Enterprise App authorized to your O365/Azure subscription and then you don't need to authorize it for each folder.
    Once the user is allowed access to the Enterprise App they use it anywhere SharePoint or OneDrive
Trevor Seward
MVP
May 30, 2019
There's a few problems working against PDFs, here.

1) PDFs were never meant to be edited. They're a *print* format.

2) PDF "standard" isn't a standard. Adobe has extended/abused PDF to no end. This lead to a misuse of PDFs; see #1. Think of OpenGL. There's a standard, and then there is vendor abuse of said standard.

3) Because of this, Microsoft cannot implement a fully featured PDF viewer/editor, due to #2.

As far as browser integration goes, this is a problem on the client side. All major browsers, sans IE, have built-in PDF viewers. It is up to the vendors of PDF software to integrate with those built-in viewers. For example, Adobe has a Chrome web extension that allows you to go from the built-in Chrome web view to Adobe Reader/Acrobat.

OneDrive sync or adding the library within Acrobat are the routes I would personally take in a scenario where these cannot be converted to a proper format designed for editing.
- EyoSama
  Copper Contributor
  Jun 08, 2020
  Items 1 to 3 are all incorrect. PDF is first of all a Standard that has been around for a very long time, with its origins in Adobe PostScript. PDF is meant to be edited, think of PDF forms and annotation/commenting. It's intended to be used in review workflows.
  
  Microsoft, like other vendors, have created PDF viewers and editors in the past. There are also multiple Microsoft connectors that allow PDF creation and manipulation.
  
  The fact that SharePoint Online doesn't support launching PDFs in their native desktop application, is a major oversight. I see from this thread that this was first reported in 2018. It's now 2020 and it still hasn't been implemented!!
  - Trevor Seward
    MVP
    Jun 14, 2020
    PDFs (and PostScript) was not designed as an editing format -- PostScript itself resided in the printer raster system for many years before the raster system moved to computers, and even then was a print/display format only.
    
    PDF, same story. Annotations didn't arrive until Adobe released PDF 1.2.
    
    John Warnock said as much, that PDF was designed as a distribution and print format, readable on any machine versus being bound to a particular operating system (i.e. Office binary file formats).
    
    Microsoft does implement converters (open PDF as DOCX; save as PDF).
- Chad Woodward
  Brass Contributor
  Jun 13, 2019
  PDF format isn’t overused or abused, it does what its supposed to; a read only document that can have a signature or markup attached. The headache for users of SharePoint and PDFs is that even if they open a PDF from SP in desktop, when they go to save it gets saved in some obscure temporary directory instead of back to SP. Suggestions to download to desktop, open/edit in application, then reupload back to SP are pure typical MS idiocracy at its best.
  - Trevor Seward
    MVP
    Jun 19, 2019
    Chad Woodward if _only_ it was used as a read only format. Nope, instead it is used as a full fledged editable document. Yes, it is abused and misused, unfortunately.
SteveMartin
Brass Contributor
May 30, 2019
Deleted and all other views of this thread - please up-vote this feature in UserVoice.
Don't relax (or be-lax) as some have suggested here - use you voice and vote here:
https://office365.uservoice.com/forums/264636-general/suggestions/18507451-allow-editing-of-pdf-files-from-sharepoint-online
- pnthrzrule
  Iron Contributor
  May 30, 2019
  SteveMartin
  Actually relaxing and using your voice are not mutually exclusive. It is quite possible to relax and use one's voice simultaneously.
  - Joao Livio
    Iron Contributor
    Nov 30, 2021
    I'm using:
    https://pdf-lib.js.org/
    
    But usually I mixed with:
    http://pdfmake.org/#/
Davick1025
Copper Contributor
Feb 27, 2019
Hey. I have been using Acrobat Adobe DC for last several years. Of course you may use even Word for editing but I prefer pdf maker to create and edit pdf files in the brower it's easy and convenient you just can do it in your browser but there's also a desktop version there.

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Edit PDF in sharepoint online

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